P. M. BRIEFING : House-Senate Deadlock Broken on $157-Billion Thrift Bailout Package
The chairman of the House negotiators on a $157-billion savings and loan industry rescue bill broke a deadlock today on drafting the legislation by accepting a comprehensive Senate package “as the basis for a settlement.”
Chairman Henry B. Gonzalez (D-Tex.) of the House Banking Committee said his side will propose changes in the draft, but that the Senate package offers the prospect that a settlement on a compromise bill could be achieved next week.
The legislation provides financing to merge, sell or liquidate hundreds of insolvent savings and loan institutions, and requires thrifts that remain in business to put more of their own capital at risk to absorb potential losses.
Senate negotiators, under the chairmanship of Donald W. Riegle Jr. (D-Mich.), offered the package on Thursday but then watched in frustration as the House took it under advisement and moved to consider each title of the complex bill. Riegle complained that the item-by-item negotiations on the 770-page House bill and 546-page Senate bill could drag on until Christmas of 1990.
Gonzalez, after an overnight review of the Senate blueprint, said it meets many of the House objectives to bail out the ailing thrift industry.
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